eMB: Enhancing Mathematical Models to Investigate the Influences of Climate Change on Zoonotic Spillover

Most infectious disease outbreaks involve transmission from animals to humans, known as zoonotic spillover. Several studies provide evidence that climate change can influence the frequency and occurrence of zoonotic spillover. Nonetheless, current mathematical models have largely overlooked the effects of climate change on zoonotic spillover. By enhancing the modeling approaches, the researchers of this multidisciplinary project seek to understand what challenges zoonotic pathogens must overcome to transmit from wild animal hosts to humans or other animals, how climate change can reduce these challenges and make it more plausible for zoonotic pathogens to live within and between new species, and what kinds of environments have a higher likelihood of zoonotic spillover in the view of climate change. The research team will use decades of weather, wildlife population, and zoonotic disease data to identify significant variables that can be incorporated into the models and to accurately estimate epidemiological predictors of spillover (e.g., the force, speed, and direction of disease spread and the basic reproduction number) as functions of significant weather and environmental factors. The numerical simulations of the calibrated models will help the researchers elucidate the underlying mechanisms governing the ecology of zoonotic disease and predict possible influences of climate change. Furthermore, this study builds on the existing wave theory of pathogen and population dispersal to advance the theoretical knowledge of traveling and stationary waves, including their existence, uniqueness, stability, and asymptotic behaviors. The analytical and computational tools, template codes, and tutorials for enhanced modeling and simulating zoonotic spillover will be released on a GitHub page dedicated to this project. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.